In fact, it notes, the figures on people leaving the province were collected before the government released details of its proposed Charter of Values, which bans the display of religious symbols among public employees. So the most likely motivation for the flood of people decamping to Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia is probably Quebec’s lousy economy and poor job prospects. Which really says something: when the glass-half-full position is that people are more disgusted by the economy than by the local politics, you know you’ve got a problem on your hands.

“We see Bill 60, in fact, as a bullying tactic,” the school board says in reference to the legislation enacting the charter. “The intolerant among us now have tacit support from the government to carry on their ways.”

And from next Tuesday, they will also have a podium, as public hearings into Bill 60, which would ban conspicuous religious symbols in the public service, begin in Quebec City. The exercise is expected to take about 250 hours and stretch into April, but in the end it is unlikely to accomplish much other than further inflaming emotions.

David Ouellette, spokesman for the Quebec branch of the Centre for Israel & Jewish Affairs (CIJA), said the 2007 Bouchard-Taylor commission into the accommodation of religious minorities at times turned into a “freak show,” with people venting their bigoted views, and he fears a repeat at the National Assembly.

“Obviously we are going to hear some very disturbing stuff,” he said, noting among the groups commenting on the values charter is one opposing circumcision and another committed to ending the ritual slaughter of livestock.

Even before the hearings get started, PQ warhorse Yves Michaud — who in 2000 was unanimously reprimanded by the National Assembly for “unacceptable” comments about Jews — offered an example of the tone of public discourse the PQ charter has sparked.

Any public servants who do not want to remove their hijabs or kippas should leave the province, he told the Presse Canadienne this week.

“And they will go to a country where it is tolerated,” he said. “If they want to go to a religious state, then don’t come to a secular state.”

Marc Tanguay, a Liberal member of the committee studying the bill and his party’s critic on the issue, said the 250 briefs received by the committee reflect “a clear division” on the proposed ban of religious symbols. But on other aspects of the bill, such as declaring the neutrality of government institutions and establishing guidelines for religious accommodations, there is a consensus.

The sensible thing would be for the government to scrap the ban on symbols and focus on areas where there is agreement, he said, but there is little chance of that.

“We know that there is an agenda behind this. It’s clear. The government wants to be re-elected on this issue and wants to build on a clear division of the population, which is a pity,” Mr. Tanguay said.

The CIJA and a sister group, Federation CJA, have submitted a brief on behalf of Quebec’s Jewish community. Mr. Ouellette said the document attacks Bill 60 as a “radical break with Quebec’s traditional model of integration and inclusiveness.”

The charter rejects pluralism and raises one religion, Roman Catholicism, above all others by assigning it special status as part of the province’s cultural heritage.

Mr. Ouellette said the PQ government is irresponsibly fanning the embers of the accommodation crisis Quebec went through in 2007, plunging it into an unnecessary debate that “risks damaging Quebec’s social fabric and the relations between the majority and minorities.”

The Jewish groups have agreed to take part in the hearings, alongside hundreds of others, both well known and obscure.

Among those in favour of the Charter are sovereigntist groups and such former politicians as Daniel Turp, Paul Bégin and Michel Gauthier. A group of women know as the Janettes, whose founder Janette Bertrand said she would be reluctant to be treated by a doctor wearing a hijab, has also submitted a brief.

Opponents include the city of Montreal, the province’s largest English school boards, a new group called Québec Inclusif and the provincial human rights commission.

“There are not really any big surprises,” Mr. Tanguay said.

“It is more or less what we have heard in the media over the last five or six months.”

Mr. Ouellette said CIJA is participating out of a sense of democratic responsibility but holds out little hope of changing the PQ’s mind.

Bernard Drainville, the minister responsible for the charter, has been dismissive of critics to date, be they former leaders of his party or legal experts at the rights commission.

“Clearly this is not a government that has been very receptive to criticism,” Mr. Ouellette said. “And therefore, we are under no illusion that the hearings will have a big impact on the government.”

The hearings’ real benefit to the minority PQ government will be to keep the issue front and centre as it prepares for a possible election this spring when the provincial budget is tabled.

“It’s their main and probably their only hope to be re-elected,” Mr. Tanguay said. “They want to build on that division.”

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